TO ALL THOSE AT COMIC-CON- MOST COMIC BOOK MOVIE ADAPTATIONS SUCK! – Part 2

July 27, 2013

Hola, weekenders!

Danielle is sleeping in because she woke up sub-7 am this past working week and is now comatose in bed.

I am up and I am realizing I didn’t post on Friday, which was just a memory lapse moment.

Last night, Danielle and I did see THE WAY WAY BACK. I’ll probably talk more about it next week, but I did want to mention how much I disliked this paint-by-numbers, bore-athon of a movie. I found all the characters unlikable including Sam Rockwell who is being forced down our throats as being likable instead of just being likable. I didn’t understand why half to all of the movie was happening or unfolding the way it was. It was much more a depressing drama than a comedy. And the climax of the movie – which is one of the least exciting premises for a climax ever in the history of movies – actually happens off screen. So, that was stupid.

Whatever. The movie makes a billion times more sense if it was set in the mid-70’s instead of in current time and it also feels like a movie set in the mid-70’s as far as it feels like it is remaking a movie that originally was made back then with the “humor” still intact. And by and large it’s a kid’s movie that is depressingly adult and neither fun for kids or adults.

ANYWAY… go see “The Wolverine” like everyone else I guess. I heard the first hour plus is good for what people thought would be a shitty comic book movie and then the last 20 minutes is that shitty comic book movie they were expecting. Lots of Hugh Jackman shirtless though…

Let’s get back into this list…

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (1994) – I don’t think I’ve ever seen this, but it is supposed to be the worst and was kept from the world’s eyes minus the select few who have traveled to Mordor to procure it.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR (2005) – I wish they had done the same for this movie. It’s funny how people think the Avengers is really good and that a movie like this is really bad because they’re frighteningly similar. This movie sucks. About the only thing “good” in it is for people who are so devoid of human contact, you see Jessica Alba in her underwear for a split second and you see Chris Evans shirtless a few times. Outside of that, this movie is stupid.

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER (2007) – This movie will forever be ingrained in my memory for housing one of the most insulting product placements in movie or life history… when Mr. Fantastic reveals the Fantastic Four space cruiser vehicle or whatever, on the leather headrests there is embroidered the Dodge Ram company logo which Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm excitedly replies to Mr. Fantastic, “Does it have a ‘hemi’?!”

WHAT THE FUCK?!!!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I’ve never wanted to kill a human being more in my life at that moment. I wanted to find all those responsible for that scene and make Chris Evans and Ione Grufford or whatever his name is watch me butcher each and everyone of the people responsible for the reprehensible and motherfucking idiotic 5 seconds of film time. By the way, the rest of the movie sucks a fucking fuck ton… but… that ONE SCENE… seriously?!

What was that line of dialogue and those embroidered seats supposed to mean? Either Mr. Fantastic had a commercial truck manufacturer – specifically Dodge Ram – make a highly advanced interstellar cruiser for a set of superheroes … OR … Mr. Fantastic made his own highly advanced interstellar cruiser and then bought 4 Dodge Ram seats for it to finish it off… OR… Mr. Fantastic embroidered the seats himself because he loves fucking Dodge Ram that much.

As for the “hemi”? A hemi is short for a hemispherical shaped combustion chambers in an engine and that’s been a thing since the invention of the combustion engine and has been largely a marketing ploy for people who like the idea of a bigger/heavier engine that will cut down on your gas efficiency and is oft unused. AND DOES THAT MEAN THAT HE’S USING A FUCKING CHRYSLER ENGINE IN AN INTERSTELLAR CRUISER OR THAT HE’S USING TECHNOLOGY THAT WAS DEVELOPED IN THE 1900’S, GOT POPULAR THROUGH MARKETING IN THE 70’S AND HAS GONE WIDELY UNDERUTILIZED SINCE FOR GOOD REASON?! WHY THE FUCK?!?!!??!?!?!!?!?!?

I hate you, whoever made that scene. I hate you more than I hate most people who have ever existed.

FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED – Honestly, I never saw this movie and I’d think there’s maybe less than 1% of the population of Earth that ever even heard about it. It was a horror movie with a heavy metal soundtrack and I bought said soundtrack once back in high school when I used to buy CDs all the time and there’s that. I’m guessing it sucked. The soundtrack was meh.

FROM HELL – Sucked. Classic sucking Johnny Depp movie. It was long and boring and it sucked. The comic book? I’ve heard that’s great. It’s one of the few Alan Moore comics I haven’t read. I saw the movie first and hated it and have put off reading the comic because of that. It’s also one of Moore’s longer graphic novels in that sense and honestly it’ll be good, but I doubt it will blow dick off. So there’s that…

GHOST RIDER – Fucking dumb. I didn’t like this movie. No one did like it, so I’m in good company on that. It was paint-by-numbers and dull. The special effects were average and the villains were ready to lose and be forgettable from the moment you meet them. Waste of time.

GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE – Well, I was told this movie is fairly unwatchable and makes no sense, which is exactly what I would expect from the people who made “Crank” and “Crank 2: High Voltage”. It looks terrible and Ghost Rider pees fire in the movie. Basically, if you’re not a simpleton 11 year old boy then you won’t like this movie.

GHOST WORLD – I know I’m supposed to like this movie, but minus the opening scene 7-11 scene (which Juno ripped off) I thought this was pretty bland. I guess it’s not bad for what it is, which is a bland movie about bland people living a bland existence and it’s a younger Thora Birch and younger Scarlett Johansson and Steve Buscemi being bland. They nailed all of that. Outside of that, it was underwhelming for sure and Scarlett disappears like 30 minutes into the movie, which was 90% of the reason I was watching the movie. I had seen “Lost in Translation” and now I was going back and seeing what else she did. I saw this. Got great reviews by indie blogger types and it was more or less one big shrug.

GREEN LANTERN – Sucked. I think we all know that. Do I have to say anymore than that? It sucked in a variety of ways that showed how stupid everyone who made that movie is? So, you hire Ryan Reynolds and you have him get in washboard abs shape. And you put a green spandex outfit on him, so you can… GREEN SCREEN ANOTHER GREEN SPANDEZ OUTFIT ONTO HIM! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN YOUR HEAD?! And then there’s the plot that is stupid and Peter Sarsgaard’s head and stuff.

HEAVY METAL – Doesn’t make much sense, but is pretty cool if you like 70’s style sexually explicit cartoons about the future, which has become barbaric. And I do, so I enjoy it. Although, it’s terrible at the same time. It’s similar to FIRE AND ICE, which I love and recognize for its awfulness as well.

HELLBOY – Good movie. The action is decent. It’s got some nice adventure qualities, but more than anything it’s a pretty funny movie. The characters are very well-introduced and dealt with throughout the movie. They blend into the movie seamlessly the way other comic book movies should, but don’t. And there are some genuinely funny and endearing moments in the movie. The end is kind of WTF, but it’s a good movie.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY – Bleh. It’s way too much CGI, it’s way too complicated for its own good, and it believes its bad guy is a million times more interesting than he is. Very similar to “Blade II” – same director and same bad guy actor. And in both movies, Guillermo Del Toro spends an inordinate amount of time on a villain who is basically the same character played by the same actor and it’s not interesting in either movie. And both movies are heavily CGI-ed which means their soulless and the movie suffers. Bad movie.

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE – I never read this comic, but the movie is great. Through and through, it’s a great movie. It’s great as in it is a simple story that is delivered on. It’s great as in it is well-acted. It’s great as in the action scenes are graphic and memorable. It’s great because Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello 69 each other while Bello is in a high school cheerleader outfit. Yep. Let me repeat that in bold… Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello 69 each other while Bello is in a high school cheerleader outfit. Is there anything more amazing than that? Seriously, I’ve seen dinosaurs in movies before over and over again, but how many times have you seen someone – a happily married couple with children – 69 each other in a movie? Probably zero times if you haven’t seen this movie. Also, they have another sex scene, which kind of starts off as rape… yeah, it’s rape to begin with… but Bello gets into it and Viggo pounds her out against a set of wooden steps so badly that she has bruises afterwards. Can you see memorable movie?! BECAUSE I CAN. Oh yeah, and Will Hurt does the most ridiculous Russian accent ever for like 10 minutes.

HULK – Bad. The movie is bad and the villain is the US military. So, if you want to watch the Hulk in a post 9/11 world kill American troops then go ahead. Not sure why this movie was made, really not sure why this movie was made like a year following 9/11 when we were as patriotic as can be and we make a superhero movie where that superhero kills American troops and only American troops. Weird. Just weird. Also, the rest of the movie sucks. It’s an entire movie about not wanting to be The Hulk. So why the fuck am I watching this?

THE INCREDIBLE HULK – Another Hulk movie and another Hulk movie about the Hulk killing American troops. If you didn’t know… Hollywood doesn’t really “reboot” anything. There are a few examples of actual “reboots”, but by and large Hollywood ends up making the exact film they made the first time but with different people. So, this time the Hulk is played by Ed Norton and he still doesn’t want to be the Hulk and he’s still killing American troops and only American troops. The only cool thing about this movie is that Rickson Gracie is in it for one scene. He’s the guy in Brazil who does the breathing stuff with Norton in the beginning of the movie. Rickson Gracie is the greatest and fuck this movie.

IRON MAN – If you love Robert Downey Jr then you love this movie no matter what anyone says about how terrible the story is, how ridiculous it is that a man builds an Iron Man outfit with a flamethrower in a cave while being held prisoner by Al Qaeda, how the movie goes in a completely different direction 2/3’s into the movie, and how Gwyenth Paltrow defeats the end bad guy with a device that seems to only exist for that moment and Iron Man does shit besides luckily falling near that device. This movie sucked.

IRON MAN 2 – If you love Robert Downey Jr. then you love this movie no matter what anyone says about how terrible the story is, how ridiculous the scene is when Don Cheadle and Iron Man fight in Iron Man suits in the middle of a party of people and neither thinks about how they are easily going to kill everyone in the party but somehow they don’t and how that scene was completely unnecessary because RDJ was giving Don Cheadle the suit anyway and it was terrible, how the ‘funny’ dialogue wasn’t ‘funny’, how the entire storyline of these weapon conventions where they have their competitors show off their weapons at that convention doesn’t make any sense nor does the idea of famous weapon conventions makes sense like they’re fashion shows and I don’t even know where to start with how stupid all of that was or that the bad guy creates an Iron Man suit in a prison cell and how on Earth did he sneak said Iron Man outfit to Morocco and into a job at the track and blah blah blah… this movie is fucking awful… and, in the end, Iron Man and Don Cheadle shoot each other with these lasers and cause an explosion – which they think might kill themselves – which in the end only kills the bad guy and doesn’t kill them… how convenient.

IRON MAN 3 – If you love Robert Downey… you get it. I didn’t see this. But I heard Gwyenth Paltrow saves the day, which means she’s saved the day 2 times more than Iron Man has in the Iron Man movies. Iron Man has saved the day at best .5 times in 3 movies. Fuck this movie franchise. Fuck these movies.

JONAH HEX – Didn’t see it, but it is one of the worst reviewed movies of all time.

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS – Didn’t know this was a comic. Um… I did see this. Um… at the time I thought this was like the hottest cast of chicks ever assembled. The movie probably sucked big time. I can’t really remember too much of what happened. But Tara Reid got gross not too much after this movie. Rachel Leigh Cook is M.I.A. and Rosario Dawson is a great looking woman who is in awful movies.

JUDGE DREDD – This was a very defining movie in my movie life. I was 11 and I saw this in the theaters with my Dad. He fell asleep. He fell asleep in a lot of movies. But I specifically remembered teenagers leaving the theater saying the movie sucked and thinking to myself that the movie did suck and that who knew a movie featuring Sly Stallone and explosions and robots and guns could suck? Apparently, everyone knew that and I was just learning that. Since then, I’ve seen the movie a bunch of times because it is a guilty pleasure of sorts. It’s over the top and bad, but it’s hilarious making fun of the movie and it is a fairly fun movie. And the climatic end scene is great with Sly fighting Armand Assante who is pretending to be Sly and Diane Lane is fighting an Asian chick and Rob Schneider is a computer whiz hacking this big robot and they’re in the head of the Statue of Liberty for some reason. I don’t know. Movies are crazy.

DREDD – Definitely good, but also bad. I would give this a solid C+. It had some really good moments and it had a lot of throwaway moments. I hope they make a sequel. If you’re bored and like action and you haven’t seen it and you want to see an R rated action movie… then see it. Besides that… it’s skippable.